Most modern commercial building are equipped with power and communications cabling which is routed using a "homerun" architecture in which wires and cables are run from a central location, such as a communications patch panel frame, point-to-point to an outlet. The wiring or cabling is continuous and is sufficiently long to make the connection.
It has been recognised that this type of approach to wiring and cabling is undesirable, for example, it causes great problems when office space is reorganised. If a particular workspace is moved to a position more distant the central distribution location, the existing wiring has to be replaced. Even if the existing wiring or cabling is sufficiently long, rerouting a long span can be very difficult.
In an attempt to overcome this problem, an architecture has been proposed which uses rapid interconnecting configurable interface connectors (RICIs).
In this architecture, a workspace is provided with a number of horizontal rises each of which connect to the central locations, for example the communications center, and each horizontal riser comprises a number of trunk lines. A RICI connector is attached to each trunk line in the horizontal riser and the RICIs are distributed along the horizontal risers such that a RICI is easily accessible from any part of the office space. Each work space is cabled by connecting a drop cable to the RICI and running that drop cable to the workspace. Thus, if the work space is moved, the cabling can be disconnected at the RICI, which is usually accessible and connected to a different RICI. If no other is available, a different length drop cable can be used which is far easier than replacing the whole cable run from the communications/power distribution centre to the work space.
The horizontal risers may be located in the false ceiling of an office space or under a false floor. They are suitable for use in any environment where it is desired to cable a number of different user locations.
One design of RICI has been proposed which comprises a generally cylindrical half which connects with a correspondingly shaped RICI by a threaded collar which rotates around a screw thread on the mating faces of the two RICIs. One of the RICIs is attached to the dropside cable and the other RICI is attached to the horizontal riser side. The two opposed RICIs carry opposed mating connections which come into contact as the two RICIs are connected using the screw threaded collar.
We have appreciated that the RICI based architecture provides considerable advantages. However, existing designs of RICI connectors are not satisfactory, for example, the use of screw threads to connect the two RICIs makes assembly and disassembly difficult, especially when the RICIs are located in confined spaces which are hard to access in a ceiling space or underfloor.
The present invention aims, therefore, to provide an improved RICI connector which will enhance the inherent advantages of RICI based architecture.